Recently, General Motors (GM), opened a $14 million test area for active-safety systems at its Milford Proving Ground. According to the Detroit News, this new investment is supposed to help GM quicken the development of advanced car safety features, including self-driving vehicle technology, with the ultimate goal of reducing car crashes. GM will deploy 22 active safety technologies on their 2016 model vehicles. One feature they are adding is automated braking that will alert a driver, and stop the car before a front-end collision. Another feature is a system that will alert a driver and automatically apply the brakes if a driver fails to see a pedestrian in front of the vehicle.

Both of the features mentioned above will use cameras in order to identify pedestrians or an upcoming potential collision. These features, along with others including a lane-departure warning system are available for around $400. The pedestrian braking system will be available on the 2016 Cadillac CT6 and the 2016 Chevrolet Malibu. It will fully stop a motor vehicle up to 20 miles per hour in order to avoid auto accidents. Eventually, these active safety features will be available on all GM models including the Buick, Cadillac, Chevy, and GMC vehicles.

The safety testing area opened by GM is 52-acres, which includes an observation building with a robotic control station, a 16-acre area for testing automated vehicles along with robot controlled vehicles, a tunnel simulator, an area for highway simulations, and areas for parking and pedestrian testing.

Jeff Boyer, vice president of global vehicle safety, said vehicle-to-vehicle technology could have helped warn drivers behind the initial crash on Interstate 94 in western Michigan this January that eventually involved some 190 vehicles.

With this test area, GM hopes to improve on its transform and improve its safety culture, after the faulty ignition switch crisis last year.

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